The Beehive

Madrid, 1942. The Civil War is over, the country is poor and everyone is getting by however they can. The film follows a large cast of people, all of whose paths run through a café called La Delicia, run by Doña Rosa. Poets, the unemployed, widows, black marketeers. On one side are the writers living close to destitution under the regime; on the other are the winners of the war and the newly rich making easy money out of illegal business. Mario Camus directs, adapting Camilo José Cela's novel of the same name; Cela himself appears in a small part. Ana Belén, Concha Velasco, Victoria Abril and Francisco Rabal are in the cast. It won the Golden Bear at Berlin.